FORUM: Liberty Quarry not like San Antonio quarries

Jackie Raspler's recent forum
speaks about personal experience
and lack of concerns with quarries in the San Antonio area, and
tries to make a comparison to the proposed Liberty Quarry. However,
these two totally different quarry situations cannot be compared.
The following is based on a telephone interview with officials at
San Antonio Cement Products:

• The quarry first referenced by Raspler began in 1907. At that
time, the quarry was far away from the city of San Antonio, whereas
here, the city of Temecula is well-established. If the proposed
Liberty Quarry were approved, it would be directly on the border of
Temecula's city limits.

• In San Antonio, homes were built near an existing quarry, and
it was the buyer's choice to purchase a home there. Temecula's
existing homeowners don't have the same choice if Granite
Construction operates Liberty Quarry for the next 75 years in a
well-established community.

• There is no 4,500-plus-acre ecological reserve on the border
of a San Antonio quarry. Here, Liberty Quarry would be on the
border of the Santa Margarita Ecological Reserve. This year, our
ecological reserve will celebrate its 50th anniversary.

• San Antonio residents and drivers don't have to contend with
Liberty Quarry's 1,600 truck-trips per day, which, based on
Granite's planned six-day work week, would be more than 480,000
truck-trips annually.

• The San Antonio quarries are known as digging quarries.
Liberty Quarry would be a blasting quarry, blasting hard rock up to
six times per week.

• Quarries in San Antonio are not known to be in close proximity
to an earthquake fault line. The Elsinore fault line is only
approximately two miles away from Liberty Quarry's site.

• San Antonio quarries aren't next to a river like the Santa
Margarita River, the last free-flowing river in Southern
California, which is also the drinking water source for the Marines
and family members at Camp Pendleton.

• Granite's Liberty Quarry is proposed to be approximately one
mile long, one-half mile wide and more than 1,000 feet deep. This
is a mega-quarry, and San Antonio quarries pale by comparison.

• San Antonio quarries aren't located next to a habitat area, or
in a "Special Linkage Area," as Liberty Quarry would be.

• Since the quarries in San Antonio were established more than
100 years ago, their employment levels do not affect quarry
competitors. Liberty Quarry, however, would be taking work away
from other established quarries in northern Riverside County, thus
putting some competitor quarry workers out of work.

• If you believe Granite Construction's assertion that Liberty
Quarry will reduce 16.5 million truck miles a year, then Liberty
Quarry will actually put hundreds of truck drivers out of work.
This would make Liberty Quarry a major job-killer and not a "job
creator."

You cannot compare the quarries referenced by Jackie Raspler to
the proposed mega-quarry called Liberty Quarry.

The final hearings for Liberty Quarry are starting in less than
two weeks. The proposed Liberty Quarry is simply the wrong project
in the wrong location.

Correction: Due to an editing error, this article said the
quarry would produce more than 480,000 round-trip truck trips
annually. That should have read 480,000 truck trips annually. We
regret the error.